Portal:Water/Why Worry about Drilling in Marcellus Shale

Marcellus Shale is a region of shale deposits in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and neighboring states. Energy companies have honed in on the region in an effort to tap methane gas within and below the layers of shale that are located there, as well as in many other shale plays throughout the country, including the Haynesville Shale, Fayetteville Shale, Eagle Ford Shale, Barnett Shale, and many others.

This effort is extremely controversial because the method of gas extraction, hydrofracking, uses millions of gallons of drinkable water to drill each well, relies on a cocktail of hazardous chemicals to lubricate the drill and keep the wells flowing, has demonstrably led to the contamination of wells and drinking water, and creates other adverse consequences for people residing near the wells, pipelines, and processing centers, in addition to contributing to greenhouse gases and climate change. Pro Publica has created two very informative illustrations about this: "What is Hydraulic Fracturing?" and "Anatomy of a Gas Well."

Though parroted by the methane gas industry as America's "clean energy future," an April 2011 study shows otherwise--the entire natural gas burning emissions cycle is actually dirtier than coal, as revealed by Cornell Professors Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea. The study can be seen here: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April11/GasDrillingDirtier.html.

Hydrofracking, or "fracking, is not regulated by federal statutes governing water safety, because industry lobbyists obtained an exemption from following this law, known as the "Halliburton loophole." Halliburton's former CEO, Dick Cheney, was instrumental in obtaining a loophole from disclosing the chemicals used in this drilling process under the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Although no complete list of all the chemicals used by each drilling company exists, information obtained from environmental clean-up sites demonstrates that known toxins are routinely being used, including hydrochloric acid, diesel fuel (which contains benzene, tuolene, and xylene) as well as formaldehyde, polyacrylimides, arsenic, and chromates. These chemicals include known carcinogens and other hazardous substances. A premium and up-to-date overview of the ecological perils associated with methane gas drilling can be seen here and was done by DeSmogBlog: http://desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/. It is titled, "Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Water, Health, and Climate."

Fracking has raised serious environmental and health concerns. In New Mexico, for example, similar processes for drilling for natural gas have leached toxic chemicals into the water table at 800 sites. Pro Publica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten revealed that as much as 85% of the fluids used during hydrofracking is regularly left after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale. He stated in an article titled "New gas wells leave more chemicals in ground," which ran in Politico on December 27, 2009, "[Over] three million gallons of chemically tainted wastewater could be left in the ground forever. Drilling companies say that chemicals make up less than 1% of that fluid...[which] still amount[s] to 34,000 gallons in a typical well."

"American Rivers" has noted that hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale poses enormous threats to the Delaware River watershed, which provides drinking water for nearly 17 million people in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. American Rivers named the Delaware River the number one most at-risk river, due to the threat of tapping into the Marcellus Shale.

Environmental Working Group has even raised the specter that methane gas drilling may be causing the injection of hexavalent chromium into U.S. citizens' drinking water, in a blog post titled, "Chromium-6 in Gas Drilling Wastes?" that can be seen here: http://www.enviroblog.org/2011/03/chromium-6-in-gas-drilling-wastes.html